Well see, Ebb, you're a craftsman. I'm inherently lazy and unfortunately forced to work.

The bilge is a whole other can of worms. Part of me says leave it. But the lazy part of me says there is too much wasted space down there the way I have it set up now. Luckily I have given up on the sealed battry/sealed box idea... I'm embarressed just admitting I was thinking in that direction. We are still tossing around the idea of adding tankage in the bilge and your job is the impetus for the act. But then I think maybe just partitioned storage for heavy dry goods like cans and wine. (And, oh yeah, wine too. Did I forget to mention wine?) Seriously though, there are just too many ideas to implement. So I try to run everything through the mill a couple of times to reduce it down. You know, simplify...KISS. What has worked best for me so far is to lag behind you and some of the other members here and just steal ideas.

I had planned to seal the top of the tank with good old fashoined epoxy. If I really felt the need to I could paint over the seams once the top finally cured. I don't think that will be necessary though. Most of the strength holding the top piece on will actually be on top of the top. Some more of the triangular cleats along with thickened epoxy and fabric willhold things down and contain any stray water from the filling process. Mind you, this is all in theory. Should I even mention that one point in time I actually thought about sealing the top down with silicon. HA!